Tag Archives: Lessons Learned

22

The Essential Lessons

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What We Should Teach

There are many life lessons we will learn

Presented with the opportunity to teach anything I wanted, and assuming that anyone wanted to learn, there is no doubt that I would try to teach a few of the things I have learned from life that I think are important.

 There were many important things that I never considered early on in life, which have proven invaluable and nearly vital knowledge today.

 These lessons may not be mind-blowing, but I think they are essential for you to be all you want to be in life. Whether you believe they have a place in your life or not is up to you.

1. There is Greatness in You

No matter the circumstance of life, each of us has the potential for greatness inside. How that greatness shows itself is different for everyone, but it is nonetheless. The secret is to find your area of expertise and allow it to grow.

greatnessIgnore the limiting thoughts of others. DonDon’tt your own negative self-talk discourage you. Follow the feeling in your heart that tells you quietly and confidently what you should be doing. Know that you are great, and allow it to show. Some of us have hidden our talent for so long that we have forgotten what direction to look or what to look for.

The first step to finding out what your skill set might contain is to start to look for it. Once you do, I have found that things tend to fall together quite naturally to develop and present you with a path to follow.

Before any of that can happen, you have to accept that you have greatness in you with the potential to do whatever you dream of.

2. Love or Fear will rule you.

There are two forces inside each of us, and everything we do comes from them: love or fear. You can choose which one you pay attention to in any situation.

 Love is not just romantic love. That is a tiny part of the entirety of the emotion, and it includes all branches of this positive emotion. Kindness, acceptance, joy, peace, love, humility, empathy, and truth are all things that come from this positive force.

Fear or Love Frame the Phrase Adyashanti Fear is the opposite and leaves its calling cards behind, evil, anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority, and ego. Following these feelings and thoughts will bring more situations to make the same choice. What you think is who you are.

With every situation you encounter throughout life, you will be faced with this simple choice of how you approach it, and your choices will determine what kind of life you experience.

It is important to remember this choice because sometimes you may be in a situation where someone elselse’soice will affect you.

How positive the impact you have in life will, in a nutshell, be boiled down to which of these two opposing forces you align yourself with.

 

3. Gratitude is the Attitude

I do not know if gratitude can be taught or not, but it is vitally important to have a good life. Often, we spend life looking at what we dondon’tve and wondering why.

This thought pattern will only bring more awareness to what you dondon’tve. Since you spend all of your thought on the lack in your life, that is precisely what you will continue to experience.

InspiringsFramedPrintGratitudeBestowsReverenceThe alternative is to focus on what you do have, and even if it isnisn’tch, being genuinely grateful for what you do have will open the door’ for more to come into your life. Since your thoughts are about gratitude and being thankful, the world will find a way to see that you experience more of these things.

Being grateful is recognizing what you have and experiencing some joy about it. Being grateful will allow you to enjoy that thing and experience a feeling of joy surrounding it.

 If you are experiencing joy, even on a small scale, it is hard not to be happy. If you are happy, well, isnisn’tat the purpose of this little game called life? I think it should be, and I am grateful to be able to tell you this.

4. Live in the Present Moment

Speaking of being happy, you must learn how to live in the moment. That means you are aware of and appreciate what is happening in your life. It would seem simple to do, yet very few people do it.

 Distractions take out minds to all sorts of places rather than where we are. You cancan’tjoy today if your mind is lost in yesterday or tomorrow. If you arearen’tesent, then your happiness will evade you.

33214115972027956_gojpenAi_f Look at people walking down the street today; most are focused on anything other than where they are. On the morning commute, almost every eye is looking at their phone or Apple Watch searching for something that is not with them.

The present moment and all that it has to offer is ignored for a fantasy of thought that takes you anywhere, but at the moment, you are actually in.

This is important because if you live your life half aware of what is going on right in front of you, it will be challenging to experience long-lasting happiness. Simply because if your joy is in the past or uncertain future, it is not with you right now.

conclusion

I would include many other lessons in my lesson plans for life, but that will have to wait for another day. I am grateful to all of you who have read to this point! You just made my day! Remember that the end game of life is to be happy. So if you are making decisions or having thoughts and experiences that arearen’trking to that end, you need to change them. You have the power to do this anytime you want, and you have to like it.

 Reflections on the way things used to be…….. lead to knowledge

22

The Rooms You Live In

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Are we looking for answers or looking for ourselves when we visit?

Perception is a unique thing people experience. Each person can see or experience something and choose to have specific thoughts and emotions about it. Two people can have the same moments together and take away a different perception of that thing.

This change happens all the time in relationships, and recently I have been reminded what I have perceived about other people, the places we have gone, and the emotions we shared were not the same. Throughout the past year, I have had many adventures that greatly valued me. I look at these experiences as rooms in my memory. I can visit any time I choose and remember the joy of the shared experience. The sad truth is that I am only half of those memories, and perhaps my thoughts and emotions about these times were less than I imagined. In this story, you will have to judge the value of my room of memory.

Entering a memory in your mind is like entering a standard room from your childhood home. You walk around and see things that bring up thoughts and emotions. However, some of the things you think you remembered well, you did not remember clearly. Or at least it must be so, or how else could that experience carry no weight with another? It was only you that loved that moment. A special memory of something loses its magic and loses its power. Somehow knowing what you thought was one thing was another makes it seem like a waste. I have entered many rooms lately and seen many valuable things destroyed.

The Entryway

The beginning, a friendship that turned into something more, the exciting beginning where I remember every detail and know that I was out of breath simply because I was near you. I felt fun, alive, spontaneous, and invigorated. But most of all, I felt accepted. I look around the room and see the world’s giant telephone, a cold day in Rockland, pancakes at a diner, all things that happened, or at least I think they did.

But if they did happen and the events of this room are actual, how could it be like a museum now? Where did they go? If joy like that was meant to be so fleeting, then why bother anyway? I do not know the answer to these questions, and I only see as I look at the dust-covered thoughts of that time that there is no way to touch them now.

The Living  Room

This place is one of my favorite rooms to visit because it is all I loved about being with you and all the things you hated about being with me. The emojis I would send you every day to tell you something about how I cared about you. A cello because it is your favorite instrument, a boat because my ship came in the day I met you. A red balloon because of a movie we saw together. All of these things are in this room.

But we know now that they don’t have any real meaning. These things are only remembered here by me, and that is making me wonder if they ever happened or if they ever existed at all. Was it all in my imagination? No, it couldn’t have been because I am in this room. But I am here alone remembering…………

The Entertainment Room

Well, then, there is this room of yours where I have difficulty opening the door. As I step in and look around, I am hit by the feeling of being kind and friendly. I once thought I had never met anyone as kind and gentle as you, and you were all of that: supportive, accepting, understanding, and everything a person could want. I often wondered what I had done to deserve such a beautiful soul in my life. Like a sunset or a sunrise, as the sky turns a fantastic color, it will only be for a short time, and so were you.

As I move around the room, the mood changes from kind and sweet to selfish and aloof. The kind words, pleasant thoughts, exciting ideas, and support receded and were replaced with uncaring, unfamiliar coldness. I think the person I knew and loved died that day, which took away one of the best friends I had ever known. She was gone, and only a shell of her was left behind. A sad replica of something beautiful is all that is left. This feeling only stands to remind me of the promise of opportunity lost. That room is the most difficult to visit, but it teaches the best lessons.

The Recovery Room

There could be no trip like this without a recovery room because we all need time to heal and start to come back from these moments of pain and suffering. Please make no mistake about it; you caused a lot of suffering: your choices, your words, your actions, and nobody else’s. Fortunately, even in a horrible situation like this, where you feel deceived for months, there are valuable lessons you can gather. There has been little about you that has been kind or nice in a very long time.

First, your situation is not the thing but how you think about it. I have learned to be less of an enslaved person to my thoughts and emotions, and I had to survive you. Second I have learned that though it was all a lie. I enjoyed being a part of a duo and that there is a power in that combination. Even though your joyful moments were seemingly all fake, mine was not, and I am grateful for the experience of being happy and sharing those moments. I cherish them even if you don’t. Because I can’t make you remember these things with fondness, but neither can you rob me of the joy I had in those moments.

As I close the door, I wonder why I bother to visit these places of memories of camping, sightseeing, birthday celebrations, and daring fun. They happened in my life, but what did they mean? I have to admit I have no concept of what is meaningful to anybody anymore. Or at least I don’t know what should be significant for me. These are my rooms, and I am doomed to wander them looking for answers I never found.

 

Life

Lessons Learned at Camp Caribou Part 2

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Tom Fischer, Toby Macgrath, Dave Penley, and Myself, the baseball staff 1992.

Seeing all the Camp Caribou 50 years of camping has made me contemplate my brief four years as a counselor there many years ago.  It is such a unique place and working there was full of lessons and personal growth.  I have carried these lessons along to all areas of my life and I am grateful for the experience and hope those lessons are being taught to others still today. I was just one of the thousands of employees the Lerman’s have had over the years but to me, the feeling of family and belonging at that place was individual and lasting. Here are a few more of the lessons I learned on that peninsula in Winslow, Maine. (Read Part 1 Here)

The Value of Personal Time

As much as I respect Bill Lerman, as a counselor, I thought that it was good to see him at meals and camp activities but never any other time. Bill was a business owner, and he would ride around the camp on a three-wheeler, checking up on this or that, so you could always hear the three-wheeler coming and stop doing anything you shouldn’t be doing.  I learned early to work hard and well when you are on duty,

John Hall, Mick Scarles, Brian Albers, Rich Redwine, Myself, Dave Penley and Lynn Hall in front our favorite camp nurse.

but to find places that nobody could find you when you had free time. Because if you had free time, and Bill found you, he could find something for you to do.

I developed many different places which were relaxing, quiet, and good places for rejuvenation.  I remember sitting in one of them, out of sight and hearing the three-wheeler pass by just behind me and smiling because I knew I wasn’t going to be spotted. The lesson here is that everyone needs time to themselves in order to be able to give what they have to others. I always have carried that forward and enjoy my time by myself when I need it.  There is nothing wrong with this and it makes you a better leader, worker, producer and person.  When I have been in positions of authority I recognize and respect that in others and I owe that lesson all to Camp Caribou.

Mindset Matters

I learned early that how you think matters in the way you experience camp. And that can be translated into all other areas of your life.  At camp, you are entering into a new environment and it brings with it some challenging choices.  If you focus

Me Pitching BP. My favorite pastime

on yourself, your day is going to be difficult. If you focus on what you can do for others, your day will be easy.  You have to be there anyway, so look for ways to make the experience fun and most of that comes with mindset. I worked with people with good and poor mindsets.  I know the ones with a positive mindset, lifted me up and made things better.  Those who complain all the time about everything are to be avoided because they will bring you down.

Thinking positively and performing your job with joy is easier and more enjoyable than being negative.  When you complain all the time and look for the things you don’t enjoy, you tend not to enjoy anything. Life is too short not to enjoy anything. Camp Caribou was my first real lesson in this and I have been able to carry that lesson through a lot of difficult times to find ways to enjoy life today. Your mindset matters my friends. Is it a good day? Or a bad day? Only you can decide.

All People Have Value

No matter where you come from in the world, the color of your skin, the religion that you practice, or the language you speak, underneath it all we are all the same. We are just people that are looking for a way to have our needs met and to feel a part of things.  I was fortunate to be exposed to people from all over the globe at Camp Caribou. Every year people go to Winslow, Maine arriving as individuals and if they make it through the summer they leave as part of something bigger than themselves.  I saw all people make contributions to the whole experience. Some were bigger than others, but all kept the life at camp moving and healthy.

One of the lessons all camping brings to people is that all people have value. The kitchen staff is just as important as the program director and in some ways more important.  I know that my ability to appreciate others and to always remember to thank someone for even the smallest kindness comes from Camp Caribou. It is good to be appreciated and also great to appreciate others.  We are presented with an opportunity to practice this each and every day. All people have an intrinsic value that they bring to life. Appreciate all of those you come in contact with. We are all doing the best we can.  Thank you Camp Caribou for that lesson.

Magic is There

The final lesson I will be talking about today is about the energy and joy that people bring to a place like Camp Caribou. It is a rare thing that a place is almost magical in the joy and excitement it brings to people.  There were any number of evening activities, bunk nights, Sunday afternoon activities, or intercamp games I participated in and all had a value to someone.  Each contributed an excitement to someone and made many people smile and be happy.  This happiness transcends the physical location of Caribou and is carried around with all the people who ever experienced it.  Like all great things, they only exist for a short season, then it is over and left in your memory.  At the end of the summer, one by one the people return to their homes and take that happiness with them.  Being at the camp as people continually left, it was like watching a giant fall asleep.  The magic of the place slowly drifted away with every boat being pulled from the water and every ball being put away.

Just like life, the time of a summer is finite, measurable and short. But that is what gives it value and makes it special.  The motto of Camp Caribou used to be “unforgettable summers” and I think that was true.  I have never forgotten the value that I took from the place and its people. I am sure there are many others who felt the same way as well. The good thing to remember is that even as the giant falls asleep every fall and stays that way throughout the winter, it will awaken again when the weather warms up and the people return, one by one in the spring and summer.  The magic of the place never disappears, it shows its value by coming back to life to teach its lessons to more people. As long as there are places like Camp Caribou, the world will be a better place.

Apparently, I could write all day about this place that has had such an influence on me and my outlook on life. I know that the Lerman family all helps run things and the next generation is taking over, I am sure that the camp is in good hands for years to come.  There are good people all over the world who have been affected in a positive way and I hope that continues for campers and staff for many years to come. I was very fortunate to have had the experience and hope all others are as grateful for the time there as I am.  (Read Part 1 Here)

 

Life

Lessons Learned From Camp Caribou, Part 1

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caribou staff photo 93
A staff photo from one of the years I worked there, I think 93. Big Bill in the middle, our fearless leader.

There are places you experience in your life which leave an indelible mark etched on your soul. You may even know it at the time but I am not sure you can appreciate it until years later.  When I was in college, I had the great privilege to work for four summers at a summer camp in Central Maine called Camp Caribou.  To describe the whole experience would take a book, but suffice it to say I learned many lessons of life there I still think of today.  Bill and Martha Lerman were the owners and operators of the camp and they were the major lesson teachers there. I am sure that thousands of young people have benefitted more than I have from their kindness, honesty, and consistency, but none appreciate it more.  These are a few of the lessons I learned at Camp Caribou in Winslow, Maine.

First, to set the scene, Camp Caribou is located on a peninsula on Pattie’s Pond. To access the camp you have to travel down a half mile long dirt road. I remember the first time I drove down it, not really knowing what to expect, a little fear and excitement mixed together. What story would this road reveal? I am sure that every kid of all ages felt something similar the first time they traveled that road.  It is windy, and people honked as they got to some curves to alert anyone coming the other way.  And then suddenly out of the woods, it opens up and brings you into the middle of the camp.  A playground of fun, with all kinds of activities kids, love.  It was enchanting and my education was just beginning.

Leadership Bill Lerman Style

Leadership is a skill some come by naturally, and others develop through experience. I know that I learned how to be a good leader from Bill Lerman. It is a story I tell often about digging a ditch. If you want to get five people to dig a ditch, do it quickly and enthusiastically, you get in the ditch with them and work like hell for about 5 minutes. All the others will fall in line and dig like hell too. Then you can back away and let them finish because the momentum is already set.  I was fortunate enough to observe Bill do this with me as one of the workers, and to later be able to lead others to the same ditch digging task. (different ditch)  Lead by example, and never ask anyone else to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. That lesson has proven to transcend all of the many careers I have participated in over the years.  I am continually grateful for the lessons Bill taught me. It has proven invaluable.

That is just one of many things that Bill taught. He probably doesn’t even know that he does it. He has a very unique voice and style of speaking so, his stories resonate with you and I do believe I developed a pretty good imitation of the man.  Pre-camp, before the kids came was a lot of work, getting everything ready for the kid’s arrival and training for the staff. All camps I am sure have some form of this, but with Bill, it was a one of a kind show.  Have a look at the video and listen to him talk.

Kindness Martha Lerman Style

One of the lasting memories I carry from my Camp Caribou days is the kindness that Martha Lerman always brought to everyone. And I mean every one. It didn’t matter if you were a camper or a counselor, she would find a way to make sure you felt like you belonged and were important to what was going on.  It could be taking the whole staff out to a movie during pre-camp when everyone had been working hard. Or making sure there was some kind of “treat” for the staff during staff

I am in this picture somewhere, but honestly have no idea where. My first year at camp.

meetings.  When I was in that first year of being a counselor, Martha often checked to make sure that I was doing OK.

It could be a run down the road with a kid who needed some encouragement, or just a quick conversation with someone who needed to be uplifted. Her kindness never shuts off.  I have seen the power of being kind over the years and its alternative.  I now try to treat people with the mantra of “kindness first”, and I have been fortunate to have many good role models in that area, but Martha Lerman was definitely one of the most powerful examples of consistent and powerful kindness I ever experienced, I am eternally grateful for that.

Brotherhood

There are two types of family in life, the ones you are born into and then there are the ones you grow into.  At Camp Caribou, it was the kind you grew into.  All of the staff members came from all over the world and had different skills, backgrounds, religions, and philosophies about life.  Yet, enter the peninsula of Camp Caribou and all that is washed away. It is your character and ability to work together that separates you. I value all of the people that I worked with and the unique skill set they brought to the table. Some were singers, some were great athletes, others got the job done every time they were called upon.  Above all other things, there were people who I could rely on for encouragement, a joke, to get out of the camp every other night, or to endure an evening activity or bunk night with.

Camp places you in a 24 hour, intense experience, so you bond with others quickly and it is a unique thing that will stay with you forever.  Two summers ago I was able to reunite with a few of the people I worked with at Camp Caribou. Although we are all much older, the relationships were still the same and the laughs just as genuine.  I learned the value of sharing an experience with someone and remembering the good things about them and it. All of my Caribou brothers are valuable, those I was close to and those I worked with for years. I see them now on Facebook and wish them all the best of everything that life has to offer.

There are too many lessons to include in just one day, so like the second half of the summer, tomorrow will carry us to the end when everyone will go home.

Life

High Flying Skydiving

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Life is a short ride and the older I get, the more I look at the value of experiences over the value of things. Sometimes we get so entrenched in the ruts of our routines that to do something totally different and outside the normal is going to make you look at everything from a different perspective. Skydiving is that kind of thing. I had never said, “Gee, I think I should go skydiving.”  But when someone you care about asks you to share the experience with her, you jump! Physically and metaphorically.

I am blessed to have a significant human who wants to do different things. So It was set to happen, I was not frightened or worried about doing it because many people have done it and most don’t die.  So I wasn’t worried and I also have been realizing more and more, there is less time ahead of me in this life then there is behind me, I had better spend it experiencing all I can, and doing what I want.  So our skydiving adventure kicked off.

False Start

We didn’t get to jump but at least we had fun. Which is easy with good company

The first time we were scheduled for our jump we got there early because we had to take a class to teach us how to be safe and sign a million forms that will absolve New England Skydive if something horrible should happen to us. We watched a video and talked about arching and not grabbing stuff behind us when falling through the air. All pretty quick and easy, but there was one problem, clouds. If it is too cloudy then they are not allowed to jump because there is a danger they would open the chute and float into a tree.

Since we didn’t have control over that we enjoyed the time hanging out waiting to see if it would open up. It didn’t and we had to reschedule for the next week. Having been there before was a help because you knew what to expect and what the preparations would be like. This time it was high skies and we were definitely going to be falling out of a plane. Reality sets in.

Power of Heights

All people have a natural and healthy fear of heights. Some are debilitated by it and others handle it easily. I am able to compartmentalize the concepts. I know we are high up and that is different. As we rode up in the plane, we weren’t all that nervous and we were looking forward to the experience. It is like anything, the anticipation can get you if you think about it too much. Really, you have no idea what to expect, but you soon will. Mastering a height of 14,000 feet is incomprehensible until you are at that height and about to let gravity take its course. Even though you know it is pretty safe, there is still a chance, a small one, that your last moment could be coming up shortly.  But you put that on the back burner and do what you have to.  I was trying to take in the whole experience as we got higher and higher.

Free Fall

Time is a human concept created to allow us to organize our activities. I know this is

No turning back!

true because once I jumped out of a plane, there was a minute or so of free falling. Just falling really fast somewhere between 120 and 160 mph.  In that minute, a thousand new experiences and thoughts came to me. Playing it back in my mind, there is no way that you can put the label of time on it.  I was being videoed during the fall so I thought I would be cool and calm while falling to the ground. Look at any of the pictures and that is far from what came out of me. Here is a short list of the sensations, thoughts, and feelings I remember. There was a feeling of joy and peace for the experience.   There was no fear -I felt uniquely happy, it is like being a kid again and doing something, without expectation or responsibility, just for the fun of it and that expression came out, uncontrollably.

I was laughing throughout the whole thing.  Nobody would know it because I was moving so fast but it was the laughter of the soul that doesn’t come out too often. As adults, we spend our time suppressing our emotions and not letting people know we are happy, sad, mad or anything.  In fact, we do this so well it becomes uncomfortable to see others express emotions. But in the free fall joy was the feeling

I couldn’t control my smile or my laughing

and expressing it was not only desirable but unstoppable.  -It is cold up there, it was 90 degrees on the ground, up there falling was cold, not freezing but comparatively cold.  I think I would compare it to a crisp day in November.  – When the emotions flow out of you uncontrollably you remember the good parts of emotions and the love of life that connects you to everybody and everything.  Then the cord is pulled and you jerk up and the fall is over. Was it a minute, an hour, or a day? Who is to say. It was in that moment where I had my only real moment of doubt, would the parachute open? It did and we were relaxed and floating.

Floating

The floating part was somewhere between 5-10 minutes as gravity did it’s slow work and pulled us toward the ground. My jump partner made small talk, “There is Lake Winnepesaki over there.”   and “The ocean is out that way!” But honestly I wasn’t listening, I was just trying to put it all into perspective and understand that I was still thousands of feet above the ground.  We worked our way down and I looked to find my significant other floating in the sky and she survived too. We worked our way to the ground and finally landed with a thump on my butt. It didn’t hurt and I was happy I had the experience and I didn’t get motion sickness or anything.

What I learned

First I learned that the change in temperature from the fall to the ground was significant and I started sweating a lot.  But more importantly, it has taken days for the experience to sink in. It still is a little bit. All of your worries of today really don’t mean anything more than your mind makes them. You can leave them behind free falling in the sky. I think my life did flash before my eyes and I know I am happy about some of it and not as happy about other parts. There are things I am afraid to do and that really seemed silly in the circumstances.  Who cares what others think of you or your life choices. It is silly.

The long-standing refrain of thought that has been guiding me, took even more significance. I have less time before me than behind me, make the most of it and experience all the things you want to.  Spend time with the people you want, do the things you want to do and make choices based on how your heart thinks.  Absolutely reject the judgment of others it is only giving away your power.

Would I do it again? Yes probably, but not today or tomorrow. There are other mountains to climb and experiences to have, but I will carry this experience with me always.